


Drawing Back in the Lines

by starraya



Series: because you're mine, I walk the line [2]
Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 11:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6904057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the sound of a door shutting signalled Franky's abrupt departure, Bridget's eyes lingered on the house key Franky had just tossed on the kitchen counter so hastily. She tried not to to feel hurt by it. Bridget had brought most of this on herself after all. </p><p>The closer you became to someone the further you had to push them away.</p><p>For better or worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drawing Back in the Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Did I have an exam last week? Do I have another in three days? Yes. 
> 
> Should I have written this?
> 
> That is up to you to decide.

After the sound of a door shutting signalled Franky's abrupt departure, Bridget's eyes lingered on the house key Franky had just tossed on the kitchen counter so hastily. She tried not to to feel hurt by it. Bridget had brought most of this on herself after all. The closer you became to someone the further you had to push them away.

 

For better or worse. 

 

Still sitting next to the kitchen counter Bridget ran her hands over her face. Sighed deep. 

 

She knew not to go after Franky. The younger woman needed time to calm down and clear her head. After the shock of Vera's confrontation, which, in an instant had threatened both Bridget's career and Franky's parole, the life the two had made together in the past few months, Bridget needed time to think as well. It struck her now that she hadn't been doing much of that lately.

 

Today had proved that. 

 

After Bridget had returned home she'd tried limit the damage as quickly as possible. Franky's freedom was at the forefront of her mind. Vera might have been that very second calling Franky's parole officer. Dutifully informing the officer that the former inmate had breached her parole conditions.

 

Significantly.

 

In Bridget's mind every moment that she and Franky had shared since the younger woman's release became momentarily tainted. In hindsight, she saw how every moment had threatened to incriminate them both. Screw Franky's parole up. How could Bridget have been so reckless? So careless? 

 

She'd fucked it all up by forgetting how delicate things still were. How fragile. But it had been difficult to think of how everything could come crashing down like glass these last months, particularly, when most nights Franky Doyle was lying asleep next to her in bed. There was a softness to her when she slept. A youngness, as well, in her face. People looked their most vulnerable asleep, but they also looked their truest selves.  

 

Had she taken it for granted? The knowledge that Franky Doyle lay asleep next her, real and safe? There?

 

And now she was gone. 

 

But not completely Bridget discovered as the long evening wound on. 

 

There was a book left on the arm of her sofa when she sat down later that night to watch what would, undoubtedly, be crap TV. She picked the book up and glanced over the cover. _How to Kill a Mockingbird._ Absentmindedly, Bridget skimmed the blurb on the back. She vaguely remembered the plot. As she read, she was careful not to to let the torn strip of paper - Franky's makeshift bookmark - slip out of the book's pages.  

 

When she rifled through her kitchen cupboards and the fridge for something to eat, she spotted ingredients. Onion. Garlic. Beef. Canned tomatoes. Franky and her had planned to make lasagne together tonight. Bridget checked the date on the beef. It would last another day.

 

_Would Franky be back by tomorrow? Or would she need more time?_

 

Bridget found herself thinking those questions over and over again. Tried to push them out of her mind. 

 

But when she went up to bed there was a black jumper thrown over the bannister that wasn't hers. 

 

There was a toothbrush that wasn't hers in the bathroom when she got ready for bed. And when she did go to bed, there was an absence so strong it became a presence. A presence of emptiness. It was nonsense to think that, she knew. Franky and her had spent nights apart before.

 

But never before had it felt like this. When she fall asleep there was a pillow next to her head that smelled distinctly of someone else, and there was a phone on her beside table, her phone, that had rung Franky's twice. Got no answer.

 

She wanted to ring again. Had to remind herself that Franky needed space and that Bridget pestering her wasn't going to help. A text would had assuaged her fears. If Franky had told her that she'd gone back to the bedsit and was thinking things through. Or that she needed some time alone, but would call her in a day or two. Franky had left angry. And Bridget knew that anger could prove to be Franky's own worst enemy. She couldn't help but worry. 

 

And when she woke in the morning she couldn't help the disappointment that washed over her when she checked her phone. No new messages or calls. Nothing. _Might as well stop fretting and get up_ , she thought.

 

Bridget remembered then that she had no job to go to. 

 

It was six in the morning. She knew she wouldn't fall back asleep, but she stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling just a little while longer. A bleak feeling settled in her, but thankfully she was all out of self-pity. There was not much more to do than accept the fallout of her fuck-up. 

 

And it had been a _magnificently_ big one. 

 

Her reputation would be ruined, no doubt, once Vera went to the board. She might already have done. The thought of the members of the board discussing the serious micalculation that was Bridget's appointment was hardly a welcome one, but she could hardly protest. She deserved everything she got. Vera was right to fire her. 

 

Because Bridget had known exactly what she had been doing by crossing the line all those months ago, exactly what she had been risking, by admitting her feelings to Franky in the prison kitchen, by starting a relationship with her, by letting Franky live with her. It was inexcusable. 

 

And now she would never work as a psychologist again. 

 

But there would still be one thing she would have that Franky wouldn't. Freedom. 

 

The ruin of her career paled next to the ruin of Franky Doyle's life. Because the damage done to her career was self-inflicted, but the damage her fuck-up could do for Franky was unforgivable in her mind. 

 

She'd promised, practically from day one, that she would help Franky to get out of prison. Help her to stop self-sabotaging her chance of freedom.

 

And now . . .  

 

 _Stop wallowing, woman_ , Bridget chastised herself, when her phone alarm rang, signalling quarter- past six, a final warning for her to pull herself out of bed and get ready for work in the morning if she'd ignored the first. 

 

She needed to get out the house. Go shopping. Anything. Trust that Franky was fine, and was just thinking things through in her head. Patiently wait for her return, but not long after it.  

 

Before she left the house later that morning she spotted Franky's key on the kitchen table - where Bridget had left it last night - and picked it up, closed her hand over it, held it for a second there, before she shook her head and went to slip the key safely into a little pot on her living room side. 

 

- 

 

Franky didn't have a fucking _clue_ what she was doing here. Parked outside the barbed-wire topped gates of Wentworth. A few months ago she'd have given anything not to see the sight of its dismal grey walls ever again. And now she was back, as close to H-Block as she was ever going to get without breaking into the damn place. 

 

 _God, she must be desperate to even imagine the idea of breaking into Wentworth_ , Franky thought. 

 

Desperate for what though? Franky had felt, ever since Bridget had told her that she needed to move out, like something had been torn from her. And now something was missing. But not just that. She felt like whatever had been taken from her had been masking a greater hollowness. A greater loss previously unacknowledged. 

 

She missed the girls, of course she did. She missed Boomer and Doreen and Liz. They were the closest thing to a proper family she had ever had. They would all be locked up in H-block for the night now. Some screw would be doing the rounds. Someone would be crying. Someone screaming. 

 

A wave of nausea flooded through Franky as she remembered Boomer's screams in the laundry room. The steam. Remembered Jacs. Remembered the riot, Meg, blood, running. Remembered every single fucked-up thing she'd seen. Every single fucked-up thing she'd done. 

 

A rap at the car window broke her reverie. Will Jackson.

 

He asked what she was doing here. She didn't know the answer.

 

He told her to go home. She didn't know where home was.

 

It was not the house she'd grown up in, or any place she'd lived in alone after that. Try as nostalgia did to distort her memories of the place, home wasn't Wentworth. Neither was the bedsit that was her official residence as far as her parole officer was concerned. Franky had spent as little time as possible there since her release. It was just a place. Small. Sparse. Bare floor. Bare walls. Impersonal. A reminder that life didn't just magically transform once you were out of prison. It just started, by degrees, to get less shitter. 

 

Of course, living with Bridget Westfall had certainly sped that process up. Maybe for the worse. 

 

Because now Franky didn't know what to do. Didn't knew where home was. It wasn't exactly Gidge's place. Home was much less tangible. It was Bridget absentmindedly tracing the tattoos on Franky's arm when they were entwined in bed together naked. It was the touch of Bridget's fingertips drawing invisible patterns over Franky's skin. It was Bridget's laughter. Her smile. The way her eyes widened and brightened, and became impossibly bluer, when she smiled. It was the taste of Bridget's lips when Franky kissed her awake in the morning, or when Bridget kissed Franky goodbye before she left for work in a morning. 

 

Bridget hadn't mentioned earlier, but Franky realised now that if Vera hadn't been bluffing, she had probably fired her. On the spot. 

 

The Freak and Vinegar Tits had wasted no time forcing the pyschologist to hand in her resignation before. 

 

Bridget had brushed it off back then, when Franky had seen Vera escorting her out the gates of Wentworth. But Franky knew Bridget loved her job, knew that she had a genuine concern and care for the woman. That she wanted to help them get better. Or at least help them deal with their shit which, God knew, everyone in Wentworth had by the fucking truck-load. 

 

Franky included. 

 

Franky remembered those times when she had woken up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night in bed, breathing rapidly. She remembered the sound of Bridget turning around to face her. 

 

"Shit, did I wake you again?"

 

"It doesn't matter." Bridget had whispered back. Her hand settled on the other woman's chest and she had felt Franky's heartbeat as it gradually steadied.

 

"Wanna talk?" 

 

"It's probably four in the morning or something stupid." 

 

Even in the dim light of the bedroom, Franky had saw Bridget's face crease into an expression of _so_? 

 

"It's alright if you don't want to. Talk." Franky had reached for Bridget's hand, squeezed it. Bridget didn't speak again. Just lay next Franky to in silence, and in that moment, that was all Franky had needed. 

 

Franky remembered when she had returned from the job interview. Fretted like fucking crazy over it. Franky had remembered telling Bridget about it. How Bridget had kissed her on the cheek and reassured her that the job interviewers would probably look on Franky's stretch as a plus. Franky would have smiled at the memory, if not for the one that followed it. _She knows._  Franky tried to push that memory to the back of her mind. The thought that the Freak actually did know about her and Bridget's relationship was something she did not want to entertain now. It could mean no fucking good. 

 

Franky gripped tighter onto the steering wheel. She managed to push the thought of the Freak out of her mind, but not Bridget. Her smile. Her voice. Her kiss.  

 

Franky didn't know why she was doing this. Remembering all this sentimental shit about her and Bridget. 

 

Remembering it as well like it was in the past. 

 

Franky felt like her whole world had been ripped from underneath her feet. Thanks to Vera Bennet. The vindictive shit. It was all her fucking fault. Bridget kicking Franky out. 

 

Only Bridget hadn't really kicked Franky out. The younger woman saw that now, even if her anger hadn't fully subsidised, even if she still didn't know what she would have done if Vera instead of Will had tapped on the car window. 

 

Bridget hadn't kicked Franky out. She had given her a chance. A chance for them to get it right this time, or try to get it as right as possible. And maybe that meant Franky moving out. Drawing a line between her and Bridget, living apart for a while. It sounded simple. But Franky knew that nothing was clear-cut. Everything had seemed so simple on the inside. But now . . . 

 

But they couldn't go back. Couldn't undo what had been done. Those lines, those boundaries between her and Bridget when they were in Wentworth had now been well and truly rubbed out.

 

Similarly, Franky knew she couldn't cross a neat line through her time at Wentworth, or her past. 

 

But maybe she could take that chance Bridget had given her. And other ones.

 

Franky's eyes flickered to the scrap of paper her dad had shoved in her car this morning.

 

Maybe she could take the chance to draw out new lines. What was it Gidget always said? Face the fear?

 

She grabbed the piece of paper, looked it over and, before she could regret the decision, fished her mobile out her bag and dialled the phone number.  

 

She wanted to meet up, she told her dad. Wanted to meet her little sister. 

 

After she finished the call, she started the car and drove out of Wentworth. _This time for good_ , she told herself.

  

-

 

"Gidge. Open up."

 

Bridget paused. Would have smiled at the sound of Franky's voice, if not for Vera's disapproving glare. 

 

" _Come on_. I'd don't have my key." 

 

When she left Vera in the lounge and made her way to the door, Bridget let a small smile play on her lips for a second at the sound of Franky impatiently pounding on the door, because it was typical Franky fashion, just to turn up like nothing had happened, after having her phone off for _twenty-four_ hours. 

 

But what had Bridget expected? Flowers?

 

She couldn't help the gladness that surged inside of her when she saw Franky, even when she carefully directed her out onto the verandah. Couldn't help feeling concerned after what Vera told her about last night. Couldn't help feeling proud, or emotional when Franky confessed to Bridget her fears about living on the outside.  

 

Bridget couldn't help the tears that she blinked back when Franky rested her forehead against hers. 

 

They hadn't sorted everything out. Admitting fear was only one step to overcoming it. Even it was the most important step.

 

Things were still messy. Bridget still didn't know where she stood with Vera. Whether Vera would jeopardise Franky's parole. It was only Fergsuon's potentially catastrophic bid to be released into General that was giving Bridget any sort of a job at this point, giving Vera a reason to temporarily put aside the 'Doyle matter' as she called it. 

 

But Bridget knew one thing. She was falling in love with Franky Doyle. Her smarts. Her resilience. Her hope. Her bravery. 

 

Franky accepted Bridget's invitation to dinner. A bit too suspiciously quick considering that the new Governor looked to be joining them as well. Before they returned inside Franky gave Bridget a smile. A promise. Franky was going to deal with things, slowly but surely. She was going to make things work. 

 

This was her freedom, and she was going to defend it. 

 

And, in that moment, that was all Bridget needed to know. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are much loved.


End file.
